News

Your daily discoveries of generation ships

29. April 2017.

Ever since the way of finding generation ships has been published, commanders from all over the bubble started combing systems and new generation ships are now almost a daily discovery.

For those still unfamiliar, Generation ships are large, self-sustaining environment ships which allow for very slow interstellar travel at sub-light speed, even though some were launched with a very early version of FTL engines similar to what we know today as supercruise.

The first Generation Ship left the Earth in 2097 and they were sent for several decades. Up to 70,000 in total left the Sol system. Hyperdrive (FSD) was invented in the 22nd century, thus Generation Ships became unnecessary since then. So it seems Generation Ships were launched between 2097 and 2200 (that is ~1200..1100 years ago).

New discoveries

Generation Ship Hyperion was discovered by Cmdr Vall on April 27, 3303. It is located in Lalande 2966, and can be found by traveling to the fourth planet in the system and then changing course toward Yemaki for 7,000 ls. Hyperion's troubles began when the passengers began to worship a child named Zachariah as a messiah who would lead them to the "promised land". When the ship's commander tried to stop a ritual and detain Zachariah, he was thrown out an airlock. Eventually, Zachariah revealed his plan to open all of the ship's airlocks; the passengers went along with it, believing they would ascend to a higher plane of existence. The Hyperion's midshipman planned to kill Zachariah before he could carry out his plan, but failed, either because he was killed or he acted too late. The life support systems were overridden and the Hyperion vented its air, presumably killing all of the passengers and crew.

Generation Ship Odysseus was discovered by Cmdr DarkShadowLYNX on April 28, 3303. It is located in Ross 859, orbiting the planet Ross 859 B 1. During the Odysseus' journey, its passengers elected a governing council with absolute authority that decided to alter the generation ship's mission. Since the ship had sustainable food, water, medical supplies, and power, it was believed that living aboard it indefinitely was safer than risking a colonization effort on an unknown planet. Years later, during the fifth generation of passengers, the Odysseus faced a deadly disease outbreak. The council enacted martial law and quarantined parts of the ship, which were then vented out into space. Some passengers wanted to remove the council and force the Odysseus to let them off at the next habitable world, but none had any knowledge of how to survive outside the ship and without the council's laws. However, the disease returned. After twenty years of fighting a losing battle against the contagion, the council and most of the passengers had perished. One of the few remaining passengers recorded a warning to stay away from the ship.

Generation Ship Thetis was discovered by Cmdr Rhaider on April 28, 3303. It is located in Nefertem, orbiting the planet Nefertem 6 A. Shortly into the Thetis's ninth generation, passengers began reporting whispering sounds coming from comms units. The sounds, a digital signal being picked up by the ship's comms array, drove passengers homicidally insane, resulting in the loss of whole decks. The signal was found to have originated from an uninhabited planet that the Thetis had passed 15 lightyears earlier. A crew member who accidentally heard the signal described it as a whisper that said "kill them all". The crew were unable to stop the signal's spread through the comms network, and the killings continued, with those affected also writing words in an unknown script on the walls in blood. The final log is a garbled transmission of the signal.

If you’re planning on visiting these locations, an advanced system scanner is something that you should really be taking with you since all of the locations are located more than 2000 Ls away from the star. Since the systems have no nav-beacons, the only way to discover planets is by either an advanced system scanner or by docking at a station in a neighbouring system where you can buy the exploration data.

2 comments

Skipp 03. May, 2017. at 21:30h

@BlitzkriegBlue - Location systems are noted in the post as well as the guide how to get there. If there are more like these (probably there are), watch out for listening posts once you drop in a system. Scan them, and they might reveal a scrambled message you need to decode and put together to find the ships.

BlitzkriegBlue 03. May, 2017. at 17:29h

This are awesome. Remember me of the stories from the Vaults in Fallout games. How can I find ships like this? What do I need to do to find them?